I went to school depressed, I went to work depressed, because this morning when I woke, I just on to your breath-taking works of art and click this story, I was then told to read VK first.
OMG. Where the hell did this idea come from? It makes me super sad and I feel like crying and I am emotionally stunted and I can't talk to anything about this because their all dismissive, 'just a story' they said. 'just my feelings' they broke :') Brilliant.

A/N: Feel you should have advised reading VK with a box of tissues. Or a bull-terrier to hide behind.

A/N2: You are mellowing in your old age.

Sigh for the opening and the "stars tied up in steel". Because this is all about the constriction and the imprisonment and the pinioning. Still new routines and early days and it's already been too long. Was too long an eon ago. But I hate the threaded through of the eternity it's going to be.

The coffee shop encounter. And of course I'm thinking just as Danny is about a hundred different coffees and milkshakes and the one-sided and the monologue hurts. The outside world that is uncomprehending and I'm getting teary thinking about how they existed in a world of two before and how they were outside the norm and this is the same and so different. Ow, ow, ow.

Danny falling into illness. Reaction aggravated by circumstance. And the self-horror at hitting out at Rusty. Mr Marley on the doorstep has a lucky escape.

Oh, the flashback. The happier times and the together and the way it should be. And yes. So painful to wake up from a dream where a relationship is intact.

Danny in hospital. And ouch for waking up and thinking it's Rusty holding his hand. The comfort from so many times and its' ripped away from him the second he opens his eyes and reality intervenes.

Hate the memory of the last time Tess smiled and meant it. So, so long ago. So much loss and pain and change since then.

Losing Danny. Tess's nightmare. Can taste the fear as she recounts what's happened. And Danny's never going to be concerned for his own welfare. In all of this, I love that Tess knows that he's going to be asking about Rusty and that she's been to check on him. Priorities.

The second visit to Rusty and this section:

"Old stories that Danny told her, once upon a time. Stories of DannyandRusty, of fun and laughter and adventure. Stories of bravery and immortality. She is not, perhaps, the storyteller that Danny is, but love lends her voice power and the staff linger in the room, listening."

It echoes to the opening part of VK - "the shell that once upon a time had danced with him, across the stars" - and it hurts like fury.

Revenge on Hairmyres and his men. The utter incomprehension of Hairmyres as to what this is about. The utter belief in his own invulnerability. And the eyes of Inigo!Saul...something he's never come across before. And he still doesn't get what he's done even if he can see that the revenge is implacable.

"His life ends tonight. Over something so stupid. So unimportant."

That's true for Danny in VK too, of course. Sigh.

Liberating Rusty from the care centre. And Rusty is never coming home.

When someone dies, they live on in memories. And when the memories fade...huh. Going into Chameleon territory. But another reason for Danny to torture himself. And even that's not going to last. Sigh. All the future glimpses in the "Last Ghost" and it's always immutable pain.

The last section and if Rusty were self-cognisant and could communicate, I believe there's no way Danny would be able to refuse him. But that's not what happens.

Bleak and sharp and unending horror. This verse remains top of the Beaufort Scale of aargh.